


that way lies madness (a liability)

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Series: after laughter [6]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, as we used to say on fanfiction.net, etc - Freeform, i promise the next one will have more plot, inspired by lorde tb completely h, literally no plot, lots of crying as usual, sap, set right after half empty girl, these are getting kind of repetitive i guess but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11686068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: "Spencer knows that there is nothing in the world like pure, simple, unfettered happiness. It is the most comfortable, genuine thing in the universe; a feeling like no other.And there is no worse feeling than as it fades. As it drains from her chest, as she remembers that she is not a person made for lasting joy. As she remembers that her default state is darkness. As she remembers that with every victory, comes a crash, and she tries to haul herself back up, but she’s so disappointed - just disappointed -  that the good feelings did not last forever, that there was a natural progression back to feeling average, that she can’t help but sink into it."





	that way lies madness (a liability)

Life is ups and down, and Spencer rides the high of speaking at Alison’s class for almost a week. Life feels split open and pure and bright, and she tells all her therapists she’s probably going to be okay for the rest of forever. She runs further and faster than she’s ever run before, cuts down on coffee by fifty percent, and does better in classes than she has since maybe junior year of high school. Everything is pure, bright, golden.

It wears off slowly but surely, as she starts to feel herself dip down back into normalcy, but the thing about feeling good is that it’s so  _ easy.  _ if it’s one thing Spencer has learned from all her years of darkness, it is that the human experience is one of a range of nuanced and interconnected emotions. That every emotion, feeling, and phase has some value and worth; that life is incomplete without days of sadness and even worry, because they lead to introspection and a more complete view on life.

This is all true. And alongside this, Spencer knows that there is nothing in the world like pure, simple, unfettered happiness. It is the most comfortable, genuine thing in the universe; a feeling like no other.

And there is no worse feeling than as it fades. As it drains from her chest, as she remembers that she is not a person made for lasting joy. As she remembers that her default state is darkness. As she remembers that with every victory, comes a crash, and she tries to haul herself back up, but she’s so disappointed - just  _ disappointed -  _  that the good feelings did not last forever, that there was a natural progression back to feeling average, that she can’t help but sink into it. But refuse to help herself, to do what she knows she’s supposed to do when she starts feeling bad. 

_ if i can’t be HAPPY then what the hell is the POINT god what is WRONG with me what is WRONG with me what is WRONG with me _

So comes what feels like madness, and she almost welcomes it.

\--

“You shouldn’t love me," she murmurs sometimes, her hand trailing across his chest. “I’m pure poison.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy, Hastings,” he’ll whisper back, even when she could have sworn up and down that he was fast asleep.

“It’s too much for anyone,” she says into the darkness. “It’s too much for me. Not even I want to listen to myself, half the time.”

“I always want to listen to you.” He catches her hands in the dark, holding them between his own, bringing her wrists to his lips. “You’re never too much for me.”

“You have to say that,” she says, pressing her face into his chest, hating herself but not being able to stop. “You don’t mean it.”

“Sleep, Spence. Sleep.”

_ you’ll leave soon, _ she thinks, repeating it over and over and over in her head until she falls asleep.

\--

In her dreams, his eyes are cold.

“I don’t understand,” she says, again and again and again. Her words are dust in her hands. She

looks down and sees blood on her palms, and that she’s up to her elbows in a bucket of dust. She thinks the bucket of dust was once maybe something else; water, or love. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

“It’s not that difficult.” It’s Toby, but it’s not; his eyes are chunks of ice, his arms are folded, his cheekbones are taut. “It’s not that difficult. I can’t dot his anymore..”

“I don’t understand,” she says. She wants to say something else, but she can’t. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.” All she can do is try the spin the dust into something new, but she can’t. She can’t. She doesn’t understand. “I don’t understand.”

There’s less and less of him every time she looks up - she keeps looking down ,at the dust. “I can’t do this anymore,” he’s saying. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, pouring the bucket of the dust onto the ground, where it pools around their feet. “I don’t understand.”

He is fading, and there are tears on her cheeks, tears that keep turning to dust, and she is shaking, shaking, someone is shaking her -

“ _ Spence -  _ ”

She wakes with a start, her face soaked with tears. Toby is shaking her gently, his face peering over hers, illuminated by the single ray of moonlight coming in from the window.

“Spence - ” she pulls herself up, pulls her knees to her chest, buries her face in her hands and tries as hard as she possibly can to stop herself from sobbing. And fails, of course.

“No,” she manages through sobs, as he brings his hand close. “No. No.  _ No. _ ”

He leans back against the headboard as she cries, gently taps his hand onto it in a slow beat, a familiar rhythm, not touching her, but still managing to hold her. There is something viscerally painful rising in his chest, but he holds back, measures, waits.

She looks up at him. “You  _ shouldn’t _ love me,” she says emphatically. “It’s a  _ mistake. _ It is a  _ mistake. _ ”

“It is no kind of mistake,” says Toby, inching his hand closer. She doesn’t move, and he threads his fingers through her hair. “What did you dream about?”

“I can’t - I - ”

“Okay.  _ Okay. _ ” He gently lowers his hand to her shoulder, pulling his other hand towards her, pulling closer, and begins to gently massage her shoulders when she doesn’t resist. She doesn’t lean into him, but she doesn’t lean away either. “Dreams are just dreams,” he says matter of factly, even though his heart is thudding, even though it’s terrifying, impossible to see Spencer like this. “Brain fluff.”

“My brain is  _ broken. _ ”

“Okay. Okay.” He edges closer still, wrapping his arms around her. All of her is shaking. 

“It’s too much. It’s too much. I can’t  _ do it anymore. _ ”

“You can. You can.”

“I can’t. I can’t - it’s what you said. It’s what you  _ said.” _

The pieces start to slot together slightly. “I would never say that,” he says gently, holding her tight. “I never would.”

“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t.” Her eyes are affixed to something far away, and he knows she is reliving something that happened a long time, or maybe what she just lived, in her dreams. His Spencer; and his heart surges with anger, and he wants to hurt the people who did this to her, wants it so badly he had to hold her tight to keep his hands from shaking. “I can’t. Toby. What if I’m just - I’m not. I’m  _ not  _ strong enough for this.” A strangled sob comes from deep within her. “I can’t keep living like this, every effin’ day and night. I can’t do it anymore I don’t even know if I  _ want  _ to do it anymore - ”

“Baby.” He speaks low in her ear. “You need to sleep. You need to lie down, and close your eyes. And I’m here - right here - and I’m going to wake you up at the slightest sound of a nightmare. And I’m going to be here - right here -and you’re going to sleep, and tomorrow, everything is going to look better.”

He is terrified that she will pull alway, but with a great shudder, she falls against him, practically limp. He slides down so they are both lying down again, rhythmitially and methodically stroking his hand through her hair, feeling her heart beat against him. It is hours before her breathing evens, but he doesn’t mind. 

he doesn’t mind at all.

\--

When Toby wakes, Spencer is not next to him, and there is a moment of fear rising in his chest before he hears muted clattering from the kitchen. Almost traditionally, he makes her breakfast, but once in a while she beats him to it. (By a rule, Spencer makes the coffee.)

He gets out of bed, walking barefoot down the hall, lingering in the kitchen doorway. Spencer is at the stove frying what seems to be eggs, fully dressed even though it’s a Saturday, shoes and all, hair up.

_ she’s leaving you, cavenaugh,  _ a ghost of a whisper crossing his mind, most probably in Jenna’s slick, fifteen year old voice.

A shiver that starts at the base of his spine creeps all the way up to his shoulders.

“Spence,” he says.

She turns. “Oh, you’re up,” she says, her voice less confident than her face. “Good morning. Eggs?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He sits down cautiously, watching her, but she doesn’t say anything. She finishes cooking, plates two servings of eggs and sets one down in front of him, one across from him. Pours two glasses of orange juice and takes a seat.

“Spence - ”

She shakes her head, taking a bit, chewing slowly, and then looking up at him.

“I’ve been up since five, thinking,” she says, very clearly. “I think you should probably leave me.”

His heart leaps. “ _ What?” _

“Don’t make me say it  _ again, _ please,” she says, her voice steadier now, her eyes looking less sure. “You heard me. It’s better for you. It would be better for you.”

“Spencer, how would it possibly - ”

“It would make your life better,” she says, her voice hard. “it would make your life easier not to have a girlfriend who wakes up crying every night. It would make your life  _ easier  _ if you could just live without  _ worrying  _ about me all the time.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And you think that breaking up with you is going to make me worry about you  _ less?” _

Maybe it was the wrong thing to say or maybe it was the right thing to say. Either way, she starts to cry again. 

\--

“I have a better idea, than me leaving you,” he says a few hours later. It’s Saturday, and it’s thunderstorming outside, and they sit by their fireplace, her hands in his. She has her regular Sunday therapy booked for tomorrow, and they’ve decided he’ll go too - half to talk about the increasingly recurring irrational fears that she’s hurting him in some way, half just for support - and for now, they’re drinking tea. Coffee is the usual, but when she falls apart, Toby makes her tea.

“What’s that?” Spencer feels calmer, her brain still buzzing but her heart more settled.

“Let’s go to London.”

She snorts with laughter. “Yeah, all right.”

“I’m serious.” He spreads his hands over her knees. “You’re graduating next month. You deserve a treat, work doesn’t start until the new years. I can take time off, Jason can cover, no problem. We’ll go to London for a month, or two, or however long we need to be away from Rosewood. See the sights, go west to the seaside.”

There is quiet for some time, but for the rain beating on the windowpanes outside.

“I’m afraid if we leave,” she says, tracing patterns on the armrest of the chair they’re curled in, “I’ll never be able to come back.”

He kisses her gently on the cheek. “We can decide that when we get there,” he says softly.

  
  



End file.
